Exits
by X3
Summary: Harper’s past, from the Neitzchiens to the Maru (Part 1 really is R, it gets lighter later)
1. Inferior-1.1

Title: Exits

By: X

      x0832001@yahoo.com

Rated: PG13-R ( I mean it too)

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I am getting no money

Summary:  Harper's past, from the Neitzchiens to the Maru

A/N:  Thank you to ElJay from the SlipstramBBS board for his title suggestion, and my friend Stacey for her suggestion for the Part titles.  

Part 1:  Inferior

"Man, they get younger everyday" commented Jerrick as they led in his latest victim.  Jerrick was the torture master, an undisputed expert in prying information from his captives—through whatever means necessary.  He'd studied the anatomy of dozens of species, knew what to do to make them suffer.

            His latest charge was some kids who'd been leading raids on the barracks.  They were swiping blankets and food, being quite a nuisance really.  They'd spent entirely too long trying to track down where their supplies were disappearing to.  They'd finally caught the little band of hoodlums in the act.  The patrol had killed one of them, caught this one but had had to let the others escape to do it.

            The two soldiers carried the boy in easily hoisted the runt onto Jerrick's table and strapped him down.  

            "Dose he have a name?"  Jerrick asked the one who held the kid helpless against the cold metal table as his comrade tightened the buckles.  The boy was squirming like a fish on a dock; desperate to break free and get home.  Of course there was little chance the Neitzchiens would be careless enough to let that happen.  

            "Seamus" supplied the buckler.

            "Seamus what?"

            "He won't say." The boy was nearly growling as he fought to keep the solders from finishing.  

            "No matter, he'll tell me what I want to know" Jerrick sighed, they always did.

            This kid was young, absolutely no older than 18.  They were getting younger all the time.  So young; Jerrick had a daughter about his age.  His little princess, in a couple years she'd be choosing a mate. They really did grow up too fast.

 This young man wouldn't be getting married anytime soon though.  If Jerrick even let him live after he had the information he wanted the boy would be doomed to rotting away, alone, in the dark basement.  Quite likely quickly forgotten about by even those who had put him down there.  "This kid should pray I let him die." Jerrick muttered.

The solders left Jerrick to get to work.  Jerrick sighed.  Seamus was in wretched shape to begin with.  If he wasn't careful the kluge might get out of this too quick and easy.  He clearly came from the camp.  Rail thin, bloodshot eyes and the thin white lines of scars spoke silently of years of hard times.

Not that any of that mattered one bit to Jerrick.  They didn't pay him to feel bad for the kluges and their sorry little lives.  They were inferior, natural law dictates they be held in submission to their genetic superiors.  Let one little resistance member go unpunished because he makes you think of your daughter and pretty soon chaos reins.

            "Well Seamus, looks like it's time to get started.  Want to make it easy and tell me about your little band of hoodlums now?"

"Bite me Uber"

"Good, I hate it when you guys crack before I get to try anything."  They'd already stripped Seamus to the waist.  Strapped to the table his struggling did nothing more than allow Jerrick to watch the human's muscles contract.  Muscles intrigued Jerrick.  He ran his hand along Seamus' protruding ribs.  The kid jerked and tensed up.  He knew the torture was going to start now.  Jerrick didn't disappoint him.

It started with a probe.  Just a little a little metal stick, slightly bent on one end.  It was cold against his skin, but not painful.  This would be the least painful sensation he would have for a while mused Jerrick.  Jerrick poked around his ribs for a minute and asked, "What is your last name Seamus?"  Seamus didn't answer.  In one quick motion Jerrick stabbed the probe into Seamus' chest.  A very dull tool, the probe didn't get too deep.  For the human though, it was an explosion of pain.  

Seamus screamed in pain.  Jerrick slowly used a towel to wipe the blood from his hands.  Seamus was bleeding quite a bit, but Jerrick knew what he was doing.  The tool had plunged through the skin and into muscle, but hadn't damaged any organs or main blood vessels.  Seamus would live another day.

Using the towel Jerrick pressed the wound to slow the bleeding.  The kid had a frail body and he couldn't afford to let him bleed to death on the first day.  But, he'd made his point.  He was the one in control here.  Under the crimson stained towel and blood smeared skin Seamus was panting and gulping for air.

He hurt.  The monster had stabbed him.  One question and he'd been stabbed; not a good sign. Not that that meant he was going this guy anything.  Oh sure he would scream, this was going to be the most painful experience of his young life.  The only thing that would hurt more would be knowing he had betrayed the few family members and friends he had left and that they'd be Jerrick's next guests.  

            The lights were raised to the point Seamus had to squint.  Just a little irritating bonus Jerrick loved to throw in.  It was even better on Nightsiders.  The blood was clotting nicely around the circular wound so Jerrick began again.

            "What's your last name Seamus?"

            "Bite me Uber" was the answer.

Jerrick decided to let the stab wound go for now and simple punched his charge in the side of the head.  

            "Is this more what you are used to Seamus?  Street Violence?"  He adjusted the table so Seamus was sitting up.  This new position put more pressure on his puncture and allowed Jerrick better punching angles.  "How about we start with this then?" his fist cleanly connected with human flesh.  "I'll remind you of home, and you can tell me the rest of your name."  The smack of skin hitting skin filled the bright little room.  Purple and black bruises were already forming and darkening around his check bones.

            "Bite me Uber"

            Three days latter Seamus was a mass of bruises who could hardly keep his eyes open but refused to say more than the colorful phrase, "Bite me Uber."  Jerrick decided it was time to change tactics.  This was the start of Stage 2.  

            Seamus still hurt.  He'd been in nothing but pain for 3 days.  At some point someone other than Jerrick had come and given him water.  He was thirsty he didn't even sniff it for poison.  His cloudy brain just recognized- liquid- thirsty- drink.  He knew today things were going to change, he could feel it.  About an hour ago they had lowered the table again.  Now he was staring at the ceiling; waiting for the next installment of doom and pain.  

            Level 2 torture was, as expected, worse than Level 1.  It involved a knife, less bruising, and more blood.  Jerrick ran the blade against the boy's concave stomach.  They'd been giving him injections.  1600 Calories a day, not food, he was still starving, losing weight every day- but he wouldn't die for a while.  A steady hand prevented even one drop of blood from being spilled; for now.

            "Seamus, we can't move on until you are at least willing to tell me your last name."

            "Bite me Uber!" he replied with gusto, fully expecting the knife to find a new home in his belly.  He was past the point of worrying about it.  Unless he betrayed everyone and told Jerrick what he wanted to know, the Neitzchien was going to hurt him.  Seamus had no intention of giving in, so he might as well piss Jerrick off.  Jerrick deserved to be pissed off.  He deserved to be pissed on, but that was another matter.  Of course Jerrick avoided the expected and didn't stab Seamus.  He simply took the boy's hand in his and squeezed until he heard a couple of sickening cracks and felt a delightful crunch.  Seamus yelped.  He'd liked those fingers. 

            Jerrick ran his knife through the skin of his broken appendage, watching the blood trickle to the floor.  "Tell-me-your-last-name-Seamus"

            "Bite-me-Uber."  Jerrick looked for the fear in Seamus' eyes, but didn't find any.  That upset him a great deal.


	2. Inferior-1.2

Exits

Inferior- 1.2

"You've developed quite a beard there."

            "Bite me Uber." Jerrick snapped Seamus' remaining three left fingers with one quick squeeze.  Seamus yelped.

            "You don't hide your pain, you know you hurt, I know you hurt, why do you let this go on?  You refuse to let the game end.  Seamus, just tell me your last name and we can get down to ending all this."

            "Bite me" a pause- perhaps he was considering the concept, that this was his own doing.  Jerrick arched an eyebrow.  Seamus continued, "U-ber", stretching his insult into two syllables.  Jerrick broke Seamus' forearm into a piece for each syllable when he brought his fist down hard against the bone.  

            "So you've decided to continue going on the hard way.  You really do need a shave kid."  Jerrick adjusted the seat next to where Seamus lay immobilized.  The sound of the Neitzchien's knife unsheifing made the little human shudder.  Seamus' skin crawled as his captor gently began shaving the weeks worth of hair and stubble from his face.  Blood dripped its fireball pattern on the floor, the table, and even splashed on the wall with a grand flourish of the blade.  It could be called a very close shave in places.  Jerrick moved the blade down, slowly scrapping the skin.  When he nicked the bruised face Jerrick  changed a nick that spilled a mere drop, to a scratch that lost a bit more as it oozed, and then to a cut that let red drip down his mudfoot's battered face.  Seamus had cuts on top of bruises and broken bones that left him with misshapen limbs and quite a bit of pain.  All that, and Seamus still had no last name!

            Level 3 involved a sub dermal electrode.  They were already using one to keep him awake at night.  This one was much more powerful.  The first shock nearly sent the kid into cardiac arrest.  He was weaker than Jerrick had expected.  His muscles jerked wildly and he screamed every time Jerrick pushed a little remote button.  It was quite a display.  "What is your family name Seamus?"

            "Bite me Uber- Arggggg."  The jolt left the boy gulping for air.  

            "What is your last name Seamus?"

            "Bite me Uber."  The boy gripped the sides of his bed as his body bucked against the straps that held him down.  They had attached the main electrode under the skin at the base of his neck.  

            "BITE ME UBER!!" he yelled without being asked, Jerrick shocked him again.  

            Late on the 2nd day of Level 3 Jerrick caught a whiff of burning flesh.  The electrode had burned out and burned a patch of skin on his victim's neck.  "See that Seamus, you out lasted the electrode.  I bet you are proud."  Seamus rolled his eyes and smiled incoherently.  This electrode stuff was not fun.  Jerrick stitched another circuit into Seamus.  "Luckily I have more."  Seamus screamed.  But not as loudly as before.  In fact by the next day, it didn't hurt as much.  The more Jerrick shocked him, the more he got used to the feeling.  That was some information he would hold on to.

            The boy was becoming a nuisance now.  How could this simple kluge defy him like this?  He was showing Jerrick up with this little act of defiance.  Any other little mudfoot he had worked on had spilled their guts, begging for the sweet embrace of death by now.  The areas he was delving into now were for the likes of enemy pride members and Caldarins.  But Seamus still hadn't broken.  He was stubborn and had nothing to live for if he betrayed his pathetic little rebel band.  Once again Jerrick almost cared, before remembering that caring was not part of his job, (which was the basis of his financial security, which was the basis of his marriages, which had brought him his sons and daughter/ reason for living) and so the kluge needed to sing like a bird.  

            He couldn't claim the kid was mute- he was quite a screamer.  But the only word he would provide was that one colorful phrase, "Bite me Uber."  Jerrick punished the boy, severely, each time he uttered that distasteful idiom.  Yet the boy persisted.  He'd looked down on and bruised him, tried to scare and bleed him, and then fry his nerves.  The mudfoot was simply infuriating.

            Jerrick's supervisors were starting to ask questions.  It was unusual that their "master extractor" was taking this ling to get results.  Jerrick was running out of time and he knew it.  This job held prestige and respect.  Jerrick had just about won over a cute, young, third wife. That is quite a feather in the cap of a man with his weak genetic background.  So level 4 torture began.  

            23 days by his count; Seamus figured he had been a prisoner in Jerrick's care fir 23 days.  He'd been deprived of sleep, food, and water much of that time.  The only people he ever saw were Jerrick and on exactly 8 occasions some sort of assistant to Jerrick, a Neitzchien Seamus had begun to mentally refer to as "Mr. Unibrow".  It was Mr. Unibrow who would give him the water and bread that kept him alive.  He missed Mr. Unibrow right now.  The pain was catching up to him.  Seamus had grown up in the camps; he knew hunger and thirst intimately.  He'd been knocked around by random Neitzchien guards trying to act tough enough times in his young life.  But even he had limits; he just wished they would leave him alone.

            He was weak and he knew it.  Jerrick was experienced enough to keep him from starving, or dehydrating.  He could keep him close to death but still alive enough to torment. He was so weak he barely struggled when Jerrick tied a blindfold around his exhausted eyes.  Then he felt his bindings coming loose for the first time in ages.  But Seamus' heart didn't soar.  He felt foreboding and dread.  Jerrick had been smiling.  

            "Your last name Seamus?"

            "Bite me Uber" he deadpanned.  All Seamus felt was a new explosion of pain as he was whacked in the back of the head and crashed unceremoniously to the cold tile floor.  


	3. Inferior-1.3

Exits

Infirior-1.3

By X

X0832001@yahoo.com

Disclaimer:  I still own nothing, you can make your own assumptions about my financial compensation

Level 4 was isolation. Seamus was taken down below, to the pitch black, freezing dungeon.  They'd retrieve him in 3 days and see if the complete lack of living contact had loosened his tongue a little.  

            They left him alone in a little 4x4 cube.  It gave him time to think.  They really shouldn't have let that happen.  Seamus was a positively brilliant kid.  If they had had schools where he was from he would've been head of the class.  The last 23 days had kept him distracted.  During what Seamus considered the day, Jerrick would beat him, cut him, yell at him, laugh at him, and then, usually beat him again.  Then at night he wouldn't let him sleep.  He'd give him stimulants and make sure he stated awake.  If he drifted off, he got zapped with a current.  So even when Jerrick had gone home to his damn Uber family, Seamus still was thinking about him as he focused on staying awake.  Stimulants coursed through his blood and he decided druggies were crazy to want this feeling.  He just yearned for the days they let him get the few hours that would help sustain life in his wretched body.  

            But now, alone in his cell, he had time to think.  Small places were actually comforting to him.  He liked being in places where an attacker would have a hard time getting to him.  It probably steamed from all the times he'd escaped a storming Neitzchien ducking in a drainpipe or huddling, cowering, in a damp log as he his from the Maggog hoards.  Isolation didn't get to him either, after they took his parents away from him- killed to save their son, Seamus had been living alone in his house.  His family had worked hard to get that house and he was not going to let squatters come and take it away.  So, he was quite used to being alone.

 To keep from going stir crazy now though Seamus would need to keep his mind occupied.  Seamus decided escape might be a nice distraction to pass the time.  This was not the first time he had been in this building.  True this was the first time he was being tortured here, but he knew enough of the general layout of the building from his raids for food and blankets.  Looking around in the dank darkness as if he could see something he listened for noise.  There was only silence.  That meant he was in the West wing, away from the noisy generator in the East wing that he and the others had so often used to muffle their entrance into this plain, gray, 2 story building with basement.  He knew a weapon storeroom was on the first floor, complete with a window he knew to be faulty.  If he knew where he was, he could use that to his advantage.  So Seamus sat in the dark for 3 days and plotted.  He was going to escape.  Jerrick would be humiliated (Seamus' revenge), and he- the dirty little mudfoot would have the last laugh.  

When light finally spilled into his cell again it hurt Seamus' eyes.  The blessed isolation was over.  Pain was coming back in full force and he knew it.  But he held on to the idea of escape.  He was not just going to survive another day; he was going to get out of here and back to his home.  

Mr. Unibrow gave Seamus a drink of water.  Jerrick stayed on the other side of the room, eyeing his prisoner.  Solitary had drained the last lingering color from his skin.  His hair sprayed out in 17 different directions and his light colored eyes squinted in the light.  Jerrick could smell him from here.  He was thinner than ever. Yellow and green healing bruises painted his white skin and served to accent the deep red of infected cuts and dried blood.  To be blunt, he was horrendous to look at.  Jerrick liked that.  

What Jerrick didn't like was the fact solitary had not improved the boy's attitude.  They were still at the same point.  Very rarely did someone come out of solitary as well as Seamus.  Crossing the distance between them quickly he snatched the cup from his victim's lips.  As usual Seamus didn't say anything.  He did have the audacity to smile though.  Without thinking Jerrick kicked the boy's knees out from under him.

"Bite me Uber" he said from the ground.

Jerrick snorted as Unibrow blindfolded the kid and led him back up the stairs, not being very careful about protecting the kluge's head from walls and other stationary objects that jumped out in front of him.  Seamus didn't care because he was concentrating on the route.  He learned the torture chamber he spent most of his time in was on the floor above the solitary cube.  The top floor was all barracks; he knew that since he stole blankets from here.  That meant it was the basement was where the solitary confinement happened and the weapons were on the same side and floor as he was now.  Prisoners and weapons in the same place; who came up with this floor plan?  Because it worked so well for the French with the Bastille.  

Once Seamus was strapped down again Jerrick approached with the probe.  He was getting more frustrated and going back to the classics.  Seamus recognized this "classic" and winced, to Jerrick's amusement.  Jerrick smiled. Maybe the boy was learning to fear him.  

"What is your last name Seamus?"

"Bite me Uber."  Jerrick poked Seamus' broken arm, it was seriously swollen and bent crookedly.  The boy gasped and moaned a little.  But Jerrick knew he was losing this battle of wills.  This stupid little mudfoot Seamus Something-or-Another was closer to breaking him than he was to getting the information he wanted from him.  "Bite me Uber was starting to ring in his ears.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

No other rebel had been this persistent.  Seamus wouldn't talk and Jerrick's bosses were not happy about this.  Unibrow was going to get his job.  Jerrick always suspected Unibrow had his own agenda.  Just hanging in the back, waiting for him to mess up.  But maybe he was just being paranoid, or Neitzchien, most likely both.  Jerrick sighed loudly.  "You really leave me no choice do you?"  He tightened all the straps and added them around his chest to keep him completely immobile.  Then he slit Seamus' arm elbow to shoulder, half an inch deep.  He turned out the lights.  "You say 'O'Malley', 'Smith', 'Johnson', whatever your last name may be and I'll see you get all fixed up.  If not; starve, bleed to death, dehydrate, succumb to exhaustion, I really don't care, die.  You'll cooperate or die."  Seamus smiled he had won.

Jerrick left Seamus alone in the dark.  Seamus listened for an entire hour before he was sure Jerrick was gone.  He mused how lame this torture method was.  Jerrick hoped on the brink of death he would beg for life and tell him whatever he wanted.  Seamus had already decided that was not for him and that continuing his escape plan would be a fine form of revenge.  All he had to do was get off this bed, get out of this room, get to the weapon room- which according to his best guess was a few feet down the hall (potentially have to distract a guard or some such nonsense when he got there), then use the faulty window to escape the building and then make it across the yard and past the gaud posts and back to Boston.  That would be not at all difficult for a person barely able to stand and currently losing blood by the cupful.

 Jerrick checked on him before he left for the day to rejoin his family.  To him, the boy was just mumbling the phrase "Bite me Uber" and moaning softly in the dark.  When the door shut Seamus returned to wriggling, so far it had not been super effective.  Jerrick had strapped him down tight.  Not that that stopped the little mudfoot from trying.  It was his shoulders that seemed to present the real problem.  If he loosened that binding he would be able to get his arms free and then undo the rest.  Seamus came to the conclusion he was going to have to dislocate his shoulder.  His shoulder had really not suffered too badly during this ordeal, but it had to be done.  Despite the pain moving brought, Seamus worked at slamming his shoulder against the bed as had as he could.  Eventually it popped forward, free from its place.  The pain was intense and it only hurt more as Seamus pushed his broken, unconnected arm forward and squished free of the upper bindings.  If he hadn't experienced so much pain these last few weeks a move like that would never have been a viable option.  But Seamus had learned he could take pain, more than even he thought he could.  He was a survivor and as long as he hurt, he wasn't dead.  

Jerrick looked in on him again in the morning, Seamus was still breathing. Jerrick closed the door again.  He hadn't noticed the boy's torso now lay on top of the straps.  Seamus could have gotten up right then and tried to fight Jerrick out of his way to make his escape.  But Seamus wasn't stupid, he would wait until the night, until just a few night guards patrolled and the other men were thoroughly bored stations.  He'd rest today, try and gain a little strength back, and make a run for it that night

 The end of that day Seamus was just the same when Jerrick poked his head in.  He was under the impression Seamus didn't know when he came to check on him, that the boy couldn't hear the door slide open just a crack and see him peering in.  When Jerrick left for the day once more Seamus started listening.  Eventually all seemed quiet and he extracted himself from the bed.  He couldn't stop the beam that crossed his face. If he could have he would have shouted for joy. But this was not the time. He looked around the sparse room for supplies.  On the floor by the bed he found tape and put the roll around his thin upper arm. Among Jerrick's ghastly surgical tools he found a marker.  The monster outlined the cuts for his butchering.  No use for a marker was there? He picked up one of the knives and crept to the door to listen.  Someone was out there.  He had a guard.  He glanced around the ceiling and floor corners, he had an air vent.  Figuring it worked in the movies Seamus crawled into the air vent, thrilled it was on the floor since he doubted in his current state he could get up into the ceiling.  

He crawled for what felt like a very long time. He crawled straight, he crawled up an incline, and he crawled through a dizzying number of twists and turns.   It occurred to him, this was not an air vent at all.  This was a maintenance tunnel.  He figured this because every so often he found a sprinkler head or circuit board behind a panel, labeled in the lower left hand corner.  The sprinkler was his friend.  In a room that stockpiled potential explosives, there were going to be a few sprinklers.  If Sprinkler heads were on the sides of this tunnel, pipes would be below, or above.  Seamus pried up a floor panel and found the water line.  He followed this, diligently checking every sprinkler to see if it was in the weapon room.  

It didn't take long to find the massive sprinkler system of the weapon room.  He was closer to home than he had been in a long while.  It had been a month since he'd seen the city of Boston, a horrible month of utter hell.  The window was just under this service tunnel.  He was going to have to be quick since quiet was not really going to be an option as he swung from the tunnel through the window to the ground.  The window hinges were what made it faulty, if he hit it he could swing right through without even breaking the glass.  But crawling out of this tunnel was going to alert those Neitzchiens with their superior hearing.  They were going to come in, that was a given.  What he had to do was get them to leave without really investigating.  

His solution was to not avoid noise but make a lot of noise. He carefully removed the floor panel of his elevated tunnel.  He was lucky absolutely every surface was the same shade of gray and most likely looked the same from the floor.  A row of rifles were lined up against the wall.  If they fell over that would make noise.  Enough noise to compensate for whatever sounds he would make.  Using the tape he made a decent sized ball.  Knowing his plan hinged on speed; with his good arm he threw the ball at the guns, grabbed the edge of the hole and swung right through the window to land in a heap on the ground outside.

The outside portion of this escape he had done many times.  While during his raids he was not in quite this much pain and he tended not to have quite so many broken bones and a useless left arm, he knew how to get out of here.  It had been getting out of here that he'd gotten caught last time.  They'd killed Henry; they were close behind the rest of them.  So, in an unusual fit of poor self preservation he had let himself get caught.  30 days ago he had let himself get caught to save the others.  They no doubt thought he was dead by now.  But, this time he was not getting caught.  Seamus was quieter than he had ever been as he made his way to the fence, crawled through the hole they had cut in the chain link, and crawled through.  He was out of the Neitzchien compound.

 Jerrick went in on the third day and all he found on the table was "SEAMUS ZEALAZNY HARPER WAS HERE" written in large, uneven letters on the table.  No Seamus in sight.  He had escaped.  Some of the straps were still tied.  The door was still locked.  But, in short, an escape had been made.  Jerrick's superiors were really not going to be happy about this

Seamus collapsed as he crossed the threshold into the Boston Clinic.  It was a makeshift hospital Seamus frequented with his more serious medical problems.  This clearly qualified.  "Seamus?"  Dr. Miller asked; hauling the boy's battered body to his feet and pulling him to the nearest bed.  

Seamus raised his head wearily and looked Dr. Miller straight in the eyes with his own red rimmed, bruise framed, swollen eyes.  "Harper, call me Harper, I don't want to be Seamus for a while."  Then he was unconscious; a truly blessed state that would allow him to heal.


	4. Motivated-2.1

Part 2- Motivated

By: X

X0832001@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: I still own nothing nor am I getting any money (But I bet we all wish we were getting paid to write fanfiction)

Four Months Latter

Bobby Jenson walked into the dirty dismal bar and sat at a table in the back which allowed him to see everyone without being seen by everyone. It was an old habit he had no intention of breaking. Not that there were many people to see in this place. An old man sat at the counter, hunched over his glass. A young couple gazed at each other and whispered near the front door. A few guys lounged around a central table, smoking, drinking, and adding to the atmosphere in this dump. Of course this whole planet was a dump. Earth, he couldn't wait to leave and get back to Beka. He was due back in 2 days. He'd told his love that he was going to hunt up a few new contacts, maybe get a couple of jobs lined up. She's told him to go have fun. Earth was not fun. But the dump was overrun with Neitzchiens and where those aggressive lab experiments went, there were weapons. That was what Bobby was really after. He was going to start a revolution. Fight for the underdog, have a purpose. 

With any luck he could find some dim mudfoot here who knew where and how he could get some warheads. A waitress sauntered by and he grabbed her wrist. The middle aged woman turned around. She was a beast of a woman, short, squat, with wiry black hair and a lovely pink scar running from eyebrow to the corner of her mouth. Flirting information out of her was going to be painful. 

"Yeah?" she drawled her Bostonian accent thick as the smoke from the center table.

"Gin and some…" he paused.

"Infahmation right?"

"Yeah" Bobby was a bit surprised. He was a decent looking guy, women tended to be blind to his hidden agenda. "How'd you…"

"Honey, yah ain't from around herah and yah ain't ah Uber. Yah want some infahmation."

"You caught me. I need to get my hands on some Neitzchien warheads."

"Yah must be joking, warheads from thah Ubers?" She walked behind the bar and poured Bobby's drink.

"I take that to mean no one around here steals from your hospitable keepers?"

"Nah, some of the kids- fooahls if yah ask me, they raid tha cahmpound for stuff all tha time. None stupid enough ta go for warheads though."

Bobby thought for a moment as she brought his drink to him. She was probably right; he didn't have enough thrones to blind someone from the danger with money. He'd have to offer something else. He took a long sip from his glass. He tried not to see how dirty it was.

"These kids, can you tell me where to find them?"

"Well, they hang around a bombed oaut building 2 streets up."

"Thanks Babe" he smiled dropping just enough thrones to cover the drink on the table.

"Is that all you're leaving?"

"You should have set a price for you information, can't take it back now."

"You should have smelled your drink fah poison. Plunk ah few more thrones down thar and yah won't die ah heavy metahl poisoning."

"What, you poisoned me?"

"Arsenic"

"What kind of bar poisons people?!" Bobby couldn't believe the ugly waitress had poisoned him.

"This is Earth." Bobby glared at the woman and dropped a few more thrones on the table, a hefty tip. "Nobody looks out for you but you." The scarred waitress smiled and gave him a vile. As Bobby slung back the little glass bottle's contents he mused how much this planet sucked. 

XXxxXXXxxxXXXXxxxxXXXXXxxxxxXXXXXXxxxxxxXXXXXXXxxxxxxx

He walked along the cracked remains of a sidewalk. He defiantly hated this planet. Up ahead he saw some rundown buildings, likely the ones that conniving waitress had been talking about. There were people in there, dirty little street punks. By the Divine, could this get any worse? 

By the time he reached the building though the street rats had disappeared. Bobby groaned. "Anybody here?" he yelled. Bobby was promptly tackled by 3 featherweights. Growling he roughly pushed the kids off him. "What is it with you idiots on Earth?" As he stood he pulled up one of the hoodlums by his long, greasy hair. "Who's in charge here?" he sneered, disgusted by these half starved wastes of human existence. 

"No one man" was his defiant answer. Bobby threw his to the floor.

"I got money and I need a job done against the Neitzchiens!" he yelled to no one in particular.

"Hey! We are rebels, not mercenaries." Spoke up the greasy long haired fellow. 

"Shut up Ziggy, hear the man out." Replied one of the other delinquents from somewhere in the shadows.

"Yeah, Ziggy" said Bobby, pushing Ziggy away from him. "I am starting a rebellion of my own. I need weapons, the Neitzchiens have them and I know you guys don't like the Neitzchiens."

"What's to like? They beat us, terrorize us for fun, then they kill your family and cart you off to one of the camps."

"Well, this would be a fine way to get back at them wouldn't it?"

"It would be a fine way to get killed" spoke up a blond tinkering in the back corner.

"You've raided the place before, this is no different"

"Well, we haven't raided that place in a little while; not since Sea-, I mean Harper…" Ziggy was cut off from a glare from the blonde. 

"What?" Bobby asked, "A raid go bad, come on guys these things happen."

"No" The blonde spoke softly and slowly "Nothing you are offering is worth the result of getting caught."

Bobby sized up the kid, he was Harper. He was even thinner than the rest of these kids, the look in his eyes were a little more haunted than the rest of them. They'd caught him. He was the one he was going to use.

"Ok" Bobby turned and left. The band of rebels went back to whatever plan of mischief they were currently cooking up. Bobby waited around the corner for Harper to leave. Slightly before dusk the kid came out. 

"Kid!" The kid kept walking, fast. Bobby lunged at him and easily sent him face first into the dirt. 

"It's almost dark" was his response getting up

"Afraid of the dark?" Bobby teased

"You should be too you big idiot. You're not from around here so I'll give you the low down, don't worry, in 1 syllable words wherever possible. Dark means you can't see; there are things in the dark who take advantage of that. Dark is bad." Bobby sneered; the punk was making fun of him. Responding the best way he could think of, he pushed the boy back into the dirt. 

"You're a smart kid, right?"

"Freakin' genius"

"Good, Then I think we can work together on my plan."

"I don't think so. Nothing you can offer would make me go back there and risk what they would do to me. I'd never see the light of day again, I mean, I am an escapee. I'd say they'd put my head on a pike and parade it around Boston as an example, but hey one your head is on the pike you pretty much are past the point of worrying about what they do with it, right?" Dark was closing in and Harper was getting a little antsy, so he was clearly rambling. Bobby couldn't care less about what the boy was rambling about. What he did care about was his plan. This kid could get inside that compound, quite likely he could get the warheads out too. He just needed a little motivation. Bobby thought about what he could offer as the boy finished his ramble about a fish. Why would they put his head on a fish? This kid sure wasn't as smart as he thought he was. 

"What if I offered you a way off this trash heap?"

"Really?" the kid was skeptical

"I'm on this ship, got the captain as my girl and she's wrapped around my little finger." 

"I'm in" was Harper's reply

"Meet me at the bar 2 streets up tomorrow afternoon at 1"

"The one that poisons everyone?"

Bobby glowered, "yeah"

"Ok" Suddenly the boy's head shot up, "I gotta go" and he jogged off. Bobby watched the runt go. He was such a naive little thing, like Bobby was really going to get saddled with him on the crew roster. He turned to head back to the ship where he would be sleeping. He turned and bumped right into the chest of a large Neitzchien on a curfew patrol. He wound up 5 thrones poorer and received a beautiful black eye for his resistance. By Golly he loved Earth and all of its colorful characters. The faster he was off this planet the better.


	5. Motivated-2.2

Exits, Part 2- Motivated

By: X

X0832001@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: I still own nothing and am getting no money

The kid was on time. He saw Bobby sitting in the back. The brute had a shiner. Harper wasn't surprised. He hadn't warned Bobby or offered to take him back to the now empty place he called home. He left the space traveler on the street with the patrols, knowing it would take mere moments for him to encounter and piss off a Neitzchien hulk. Harper wasn't stupid, he knew there was no way Bobby was going to let him join his crew. Bobby could barely cover his distaste for Harper and his buddies while he was completely outnumbered by them. As soon as it was one on one he was going dump this mudfoot. But, Harper figured whatever drift, spaceport, moon, or even just a sizeable asteroid they left him on would be better than here. 

"Hey Bobby"

"I'm employing you- call me 'sir'." Bobby was in a foul mood.

"Sorry sir" Harper knew to pick his battles and titles of respect were not worth the fight. "So, do we have a plan?"

"I though you were the genius kid, you've been in there, think one up." Harper leaned back in his chair. His eyes took on a far away look as he plotted. Bobby was lucky he was getting a good plotter. 

Bobby was on the verge of severe boredom when the kid rejoined him in the land of the living. "I got it." The twerp announced. "We get them to transfer a shipment of the warheads. They'll think they are sending them to another Neitzchien compound, but really your ship will be the one picking them up."

"How do we make the transport?"

"Put it in their computer system; make them think someone sent it to them"

"And you can do this kid?"

"Yes sir, Bobby sir" Bobby smacked him, making his chair teeter.

"This isn't the time for jokes"

"I can do it" Harper assured him. 

"Excellent" This time he actually did send Harper off the chair and onto the floor. "I gotta be getting out of here; my girl will start to worry about me. 

"You aren't staying?"

"If I were going to do this, why would I have hired you? Keep me updated, I'll have the Maru here in 1 week." With that Bobby Jenson walked out of the bar and was off planet as fast as he could manage.

XXXXxxxxXXXXxxxxXXXXxxxx

Harper was sure Bobby was going to screw him the first chance he got. So he was going to have to be sure he was not expendable until they had delivered the weapons. Harper thought about his plan. In the last 4 months the rumors he had heard said the Neitzchiens had figured out how he had escaped. Harper was pretty proud it had taken a week of investigation. Unfortunately, they had finally fixed the window. He would need the item number of the warheads, the code for another Neitzchien stronghold, as well as the codes for this one. Then he could requisition the warheads right onto the Maru without the Neitzchiens being any the wiser. Well, at least long enough for them to get away. Luckily he was good with machines because that was the only way this plan was going to get pulled off. The main obstacle was getting at their computer files; he'd have to be inside the compound again. 

Harper sat at the table thinking for a long time. He needed to get in, and to get to a computer on their system. So far the only computer he could think of was the one in Jerrick's office. When Jerrick had come in for a few of his sessions he had come from this little door that slid into the wall in the back corner. Through the doorway Harper had seen a desk with a computer terminal. He'd pretty much ignored it because the door slid open, into the wall so even if he wasn't strapped down he couldn't hide behind it or use it as a weapon, then it slid shut again in less than a second. He did not want Jerrick's computer. He did not want to be anywhere near that office. Those dark, copper smelling rooms he had been held in were to stay a part of his past. 

The East wing with its noisy generator seemed to be his friend again. The generator was huge; it took up part of the basement and 1st floor. Built as a tall rectangular it took up a portion of the two floors rather than almost all of one. The drawback of the plan for those with superior hearing was how its rumble was clear throughout the east wing. That noise would cover any noise he made breaking in. 

Then, all he would have to do was find a computer. Harper idly drew a sketch of the first floor floor plan on a bar napkin. Looking at it he realized several offices lined a back corridor. Offices would have computers. If the torture guy got a computer; then everybody had a computer. He just had to get in, get to one of these offices, access the computer requisitioning forms and supply codes and get out. With the incentive he had this was not a problem. 

Harper stood up. The bar was full. It was already past 20:00 by the clock on the wall. He had spent hours planning. He stretched and left the bar, avoiding eye contact with the waitress whose table he had been clogging all day, thus denying it to someone who might actually tip her. He carefully made his way home, avoiding the Neitzchien patrols and the beatings they would bring. He didn't like to be out after dark if he could help it. His friends probably wondered what had happened to him. Since his parents died he had been at the "stronghold" at least for a couple hours everyday. Of course that excluded the month long vacation he had spent with the Neitzchiens. But there was no way he was heading there at night. There was too much of a risk that one of these Ubers might follow him. 

Harper contacted Bobby the next morning and told him tomorrow night was when he planned to make the transfer. Then he went to see his friends. If this went right he didn't have that much time left here. He planned the raids and fiddled with the shriller design until dusk. He'd miss these guys. Brendan was the only real family he had left in the world. The greasy long haired kid was Mark. A born schemer Mike and Harper had planned some of the group's most affective raids. Ziggy was unique Harper would miss him too. There were a lot of them, like everyone on this planet they'd lost people. For some reason they'd banded together and started lashing out at their "masters". It took your mind off the death for a while. He felt bad about leaving all of them. But, he knew he had to get off this planet. All the death and pain was more than anyone could take. You had to look out for you on this planet.

Harper allowed himself the luxury of a little extra sleep. He didn't have any food in the house so it really didn't matter if he slept past breakfast. When he did get out of bed he threw on some clothes and started considering what he would need for that night. He had to be prepared in case something went wrong because he could not afford to get caught. All he came up with was a gun and luck. He wasn't a bad shot with a gun and so he hung the holster from his belt hoping it wouldn't come down to shooting his way out. He was ready to take a big step towards getting off this planet.

When night had fully arrived Harper headed for the Neitzchien base. He planned to slip in now, after all the changing of the guards had taken place and they were settled back on their patrols. The night was cold and clear. "The perfect weather to do something potentially suicidal" he commented softly to no one in particular. 

It was easy enough to get in. As he expected the generator was as loud as it always had been. Its steady whirr move than covered the sound of breaking glass as he punched a hole in the glass and let himself in. The generator room was big and hot. The main control panel briefly caught Seamus' attention but, he followed is plan and cautiously made his way to the offices in the back. 

Offices might not have been a good way to describe these rooms. Important Neitzchien men owned these rooms. They had their big expensive desk there, books, heavily perfumed air, nice furniture, but they weren't really for doing too much work. They had little betas or even kluges who handled the real filing and organizing. These offices were just designed for status and to give these people a place to look busy and feel important. 

All Harper cared about was that they had computers on the network. Keeping to the shadows he made it to an office door and quickly took care of the lock with a simple piece of plastic he carried in his pocket for just these types of situations. The computer was on the desk. Harper threw himself in the chair and was pounding the buttons in front of him almost instantly. 

His natural rapport with machines kicked in and he found the requisitioning information. Bobby wanted a case of warheads; item D-0983-214. "Step one, check" muttered the thief. He scrolled through a few more screens. This was Neitzchien Outpost 4722-B. "Step Two, check" Harper shifted in the chair and quickly searched for past requisition forms that would give him the code of another outpost he could forge into needing warheads. "I am a god baby" he smiled; 4732-E had borrowed 24 Gauss guns 17 months ago. If they had needed guns then why not warheads now? 

Harper made the order and began rerouting it's signature to read that 4732-E had sent in the first place. He used every trick he could think of to confuse this machine into doing exactly what he wanted. Maintenance screens popped up, catalogs of programs and files popped up, all the things the genius needed to pull this off were at his nimble finger tips. 

Then the problem arose. Harper heard footsteps. He ducked under the large desk just in time to avoid being seen by a patrolman. "Stupid Jenson, nobody is here" muttered the guard as he walked away. Harper couldn't believe how stupid Bobby was. He had betrayed him just as he had expected, but didn't even give him time to get the job done. The screen blinked, waiting for him to let this machine send a form to itself. Should he? Bobby wouldn't honor their deal if he could help it. The bastard had wanted him to get caught and wind up back in Jerrick's hands. The room where they had taken a month of his life away and given him a lifetime of nightmares and scars was just down a hall and around the corner. Bobby had wanted him to get sent back there.

XxXxXx

Harper turned back to the screen. He added a note, "Approval code required- URA-B00B" He was indispensable once more. Without receiving that code the transport crew was not going to let that crate of warhead out of their sight. Harper could send them that code. Bobby could not. Harper hit "Transmit".

Harper then hurried back to the generator. He could hear the Neitzchien still looking for him. The Neitzchien could smell him. The fragrant air had hidden him before, but now the guard caught a whiff of the sweat and dirt that was Harper. He chased the boy. The boy ran down a corridor, away from the generator to try and lose his pursuer. They knew someone had been inside. He turned a corner and another so he was headed back to the generator. They would be suspicious he realized. He had to make them think he had been there doing something other than messing with the computer files. Emergency doors leading back to the generator were rumbling shut to trap him. Harper slid between them at the last second, buying himself some time as the Neitzchien had to open them again to follow. 

Harper looked at the main control panel of the generator. Shutting down the generator could have been this mission. He crudely tore at the wires to make it look like he had been trying to shut down the Neitzchien fortress from there. With the amount of respect Ubers had for Kluge intelligence it would seem a stupid little human would have that as a plan. When the generator was thoroughly mangled looking from a failed rebel mission Harper jumped out the window in time to avoid being seen as the emergency doors finally got open again.

He walked back to the camp slowly. Not drawing attention to himself, he pretended he was just a lost drunk trying to get home. He could see the fence around Boston in the distance. He had spent the last 20 years in this city turned refugee camp. He'd been here 20 years and now, it actually looked like he was going to get out. Not that Bobby wanted him. The jerk couldn't even wait for the job to be done before he turned on the kid who was doing all the dangerous parts. But Bobby wasn't so smart. He wasn't getting those warheads if he didn't take this mudfoot off of this planet when he showed up in 4 days. 


	6. Motivated-2.3

Exits, Part 2- Motivated

Disclaimer: I haven't gotten control of Andromeda's characters since the last chapter and they certainly aren't paying me to write this.

Harper spent the 4 days generally being mad at Bobby and wishing harm to come to his person. He even had thought a couple of ways to see that it happened. Seamus Z. Harper did not take kindly to people trying to get him killed. But with a maturity formed by selfishness he decided to go along with their original agreement, allowing for Bobby to be only humiliated and hopefully mildly maimed. He was mature, but he could still hope for a maiming. 

Maiming was actually commonplace around here. After he had retuned he found Ziggy had nearly lost his left eye in a fight with an Uber. A shame, but no one was that surprised. Things happened, people got hurt. Harper did not want to stick around waiting for it to happen to him again. 

So on the appointed day he went to the landing strip where they had agreed the transfer would take place and waited for Bobby. The backstabber arrived in one of the most run down, clunky ships ever to grace the strip. The rumble in the distance indicated the Neitzchiens were heading across the dusty field in one of their ground transport vehicles. Harper was crouched in the shadows behind the closest white stone storage bay. These bays bisected the giant empty field that was the Boston area space port and offered Harper a view of what happened when the Neitzchiens met Bobby.

"Code" was all the big Neitzchien asked, his impatience already showing. 

"What?" Bobby asked

"Don't mess with us human, tell us the authorization code, or you aren't getting the shipment."

"Authorization code?" What are you talking about?"

"You are wasting my time kluge?!"

"What?" The Neitzchien proceeded to knock Bobby flat on his back. He stepped on the human's hand as he turned to leave, getting a lovely yell from the nasty human. Harper swooped in in time to save the deal. 

He wished he could capture the look on Bobby Jenson's face when he appeared from behind the building. It was wonderful. "I'm sorry; my partner didn't seem to get the information. The code is URA-B00B."

"Thank you"

"Yeah, thanks Seamus. Why don't you get the box?" Bobby was glaring at Harper to kill him. He did not take kindly to being made a fool. Unfortunately there really wasn't anything he could do about the situation.

It was about this time Beka Valintine, the Maru's captain appeared. She was quite attractive in Harper's opinion. Bobby's too, as he demonstrated by planting a kiss on his lips. Harper wanted to gag. The Neitzchiens for their part finally figured out this was an odd situation and responded in the typical Neitzchien manner of shooting their guns. 

Harper brought the crate onto the Maru fast. The others followed as quickly as they could. The scene had gotten a little ugly. Beka headed for the command deck to get them away from the ugly scene leaving Harper and Bobby standing by the door. Bobby knew he'd have to keep the kid around a little longer and that annoyed him. 

"What was that about kid?!" he yelled when Beka was out of earshot, since he didn't want her to know he'd been tricked.

"What was that about? You told the Neitz I was there! Do you know what they would have done to me?"

"Something about a fish, I wasn't really paying attention."

"Why did you do it?"

"Frankly I just didn't want to pay you."

"Fine. We have to get out of here now though."

"What's the rush, this is your home after all"

"The Neitzchiens are going to realize they gave their weapons to an outpost who never requested them. Then they are going to come after us. Maybe we shouldn't be here then."

"Alright, we're going. But this isn't over kid." Then they headed for command deck. 


	7. Loyalty-3.1

Exits Part 3: Loyalty

3.1

Disclaimer:  I own nothing and am getting no money

After the Events Shown in "Be All My Sins Remembered"

Beka Valentine looked in the engine room at the boy who'd become part of her crew.  Really, he was her only crew member now.  Her only crew member was a scrawny, baby-faced punk.  Of course she could see through that act to the kicked puppy he hid from the world.  He had the wariest eyes she had encountered.  He wasn't just paranoid; he was the cagiest person she had encountered.  They were the only two people on the Maru and he still kept his guard up and eyes searching for hidden enemies.  The way he ate was the worst, hunched over the plate, fork in his fist, shoveling at an unthinkable rate.  

            He was a good engineer though; she had to admit that.  He spoke the language of machines and was their pied piper.  Bobby had found her a clever kid; despite his paranoid quirks.  "Ah, Bobby" she sighed very quietly.  The kid didn't even look up.  He was still sitting cross-legged, leaning back at an incredibly awkward limbo angle under a console tinkering away.  Beka shook her head and started walking down the hall.  

            Bobby.  Bobby had betrayed her and now was gone.  But she missed him.  The rational part of her knew he had to go, he could no longer trust him.  But there was a definite, large, and unfortunately loud par of her that missed him.  She had loved him and now he was gone.  She found herself in the Maru's galley.  She found herself at the liquor cabinet with the key in her hand.  She shook her head as she pushed the key into its slot.  "Just a nip to dull this" she told herself, turning the shard of metal in her hand.  The door easily swung open and she brought the bottle of amber liquid to the little table.  She had no idea what it was.  She didn't normally drink; she didn't drink at all after watching the poisons destroy her father.  But she couldn't deal with this right now.  She just needed a little break from these thoughts.  

            She had loved Bobby, trusted him and she wound up betrayed.  He was gone now.  Before that she had loved her father, trusted him.  He was dead because of his own selfishness.  He couldn't stop himself, not even for her and he wound up dead. So he was gone now too.  She was alone on her ship with a mudfoot who probably would be jumping ship at the next drift.  Why would he stay?  No one ever stayed.  She didn't trust him and she didn't plan to.  He was just going to leave anyway and she was going to be really alone. 

            So she drank.  It started out as the one shot she had told herself she would have.  Then she had another, and another.  She drank until the world was a colorful blur.  She sat alone in the galley laughing at the top of her lungs, neck made of gelatin.  Apparently her unrestrained merriment caught the attention of her resident handyman because Harper cautiously crept into the galley.  

            He found his captain ridiculously drunk and banging around the kitchen.  "Ah, boss, maybe you should sit down, drink some water or something." Beka proceeded to stumble across the room and hug him.  He stiffened in her grasp; he was not accustomed to people hugging him. "Aww kid!" Beka was the first "happy drunk" he had encountered. He was more than familiar with the "Violent drunk", and an occasional "Sad drunk", or "Mad Drunk".  He also had some experience with "Incoherent Drunk", which seemed to be where Beka was heading.  

            "You little—I know you" She attempted to push off him and nearly fell.  She was completely and utterly plastered.  "You're the mudfoot..."

            "OK, very good boss" he told her as she easily caught her and set her back on her wobbly feet.  She proceeded to throw up on his shoulder and down his back.  It was quite disgusting. 

"Sorry" she mumbled.   But the trooper that he was he simply slipped out of the soiled shirt and began steering Beka towards her bathroom.  If he had a throne for every time he was puked on, well, he'd have 17 thrones. 

Beka was really, really drunk.  He didn't know why but Harper felt like he had to help her out.  Beka was the best boss he had ever had.  He mainly did freelance designs and repairs, but that didn't stop his temporary employers from knocking him around or treating him like dirt. Beka was the first who just left him to his repairs, treated him like he was worth the space he took up and she actually concerned herself with feeding him.  

He'd been drunk many, many times in his life.  He started when his parents died and he still got himself trashed on a semi-regular basis.  But his boss, she didn't seem like someone with that habit.  This was probably the first time she got really trashed and she needed someone to take care of her.   Nothing was worse than waking up gross, hung over and after a night of sleeping on the floor.  Well, there were worse things but that really couldn't be called fun.  

 Normally he might have felt awkward about walking the halls of the Maru topless; his scars clear on his pale drawn skin.  But, he was pretty sure in this state Beka wasn't going to remember any of this in the morning.  

When then got to their destination Beka threw up some more.  "Ah the fun side of drinking, paying homage to the drunk's prime god." He set her down on her bathroom floor and left for a minute.  He returned with a glass of water and a tee shirt.  He put the glass on the counter by the sink and pulled on the white shirt.  What he was about to do required at least a little more clothing on his part.  Sitting with Beka on the floor he untied her boots and slid them off.  She needed a shower.  Beka had stopped laughing and now was just in a semiconscious drunken stupor.  "Boss, I am not taking advantage of you.  We are just going to take a little shower and get you all nice and clean.  Because, well you are pretty gross right now boss."  He took off his boots and then pulled off her top without any resistance.  Putting an arm around her he pulled her to stand with him.  Blushing like a madman he got her pants off. "This is for your own good boss" he assured her. Her underwear remained exactly where it was, he was incredibly embarrassed to be helping his new boss into the shower, but she couldn't just stay gross.  

            Beka leaned against him and he put them both under the warm water of the shower.  Her neck twisted and she rested her head against his neck.  "You are going to leave me" she told him, simply, drunkenly.  

            "Nah boss, this is the best job I've ever had."  He managed to lean back and grab a sponge to gently clean her up.  Still dazed, she could feel the warm water on her skin, and it was nice.  She felt safe; someone was taking care of her.  

 He pulled her out of the shower, now clean.  They made it to Beka's room and he sat her on the bed.  Without the support of the mudfoot she simply fell back across the bed.  

            "Whee" was all she said about this.

            "You really are quite drunk"

            Rummaging through her drawers Harper came up with some bed clothes and helped her get dressed. She still had on the wet underwear, but he was not going to do anything about that.  Actually he was still dripping wet himself and he sloshed as he left the room.  Retrieving the glass of water from the bathroom he returned and made her drink it.  "You'll feel better in the morning if you drink it" he told her, sure she had no idea he was even there.  

"No"

"I think I know a little more about drinking yourself into oblivion than you boss trust me, drink."  She complied and even drank another glass when he offered it.  

Then Harper tucked in his boss, very gently.  He made sure she was all coved up with the big warm comforter and left her to sleep.   "Good Night boss" he told her heading down the hall to find some dry clothes before he went back to the repairs these activities had taken him away from.   

XXxxXxXxXXxxXxXxXXxxXXxxXxXxXXxx

            Beka woke up the next morning in her bed.  The night before was a complete fog.  She groaned, she must've gotten really drunk last night.  But, she felt better than she thought she would.  She rolled out of bed.  She was wearing a pajama combination she'd never seen together before, plaid shorts and a sweatshirt.  She tried to remember what had gone on the night before as she got dressed for the day.  She remembered she had sat down in the galley and started drinking.  She looked around for her boots.  She remembered being in the bathroom.  Going there she found her boots and sat down to put them on.  Racking her brain for what had happened while she was intoxicated she remembered taking a shower.  But that was all she could recall.

            In the galley she found breakfast, as well as the empty liquor bottle next to the sink.  She had drunk the whole bottle.  She groaned again, hopefully she had steered clear of Harper in this state. If she hadn't he'd probably lost all respect for her.  She knew what having a drunk for a captain did to a crew.  Her father rarely kept a crewman more than a few runs before they left, sick of Ignatius' habits.  

            She found Harper in the engine room.  "Hey boss" he greeted her.  He was working under a different panel this time but still in a position that could only be achieved by the limber mudfoot.  "Hey kid" she responded.  "How's it going?"

            "Not bad, I'll have the environmental systems in tip top condition by this afternoon."

            "Good" she turned to leave when she suddenly got a clear flash of the night before.  Harper had seen her drunk; he'd taken care of her.  It was actually pretty hard to believe.  The little hoodlum didn't seem like he had it in him.  Then she thought about that kicked puppy beneath the surface.  Maybe beneath that was someone who cared.  

            Beka didn't know what to do now.  Harper had taken care of her while she was drunk.  She was pretty sure she had vomited on him.  Could they possible have a normal relationship now?  Could things go back to the way they had been?  She turned around to face the engine room again.

            Harper was still working.  "Anything I can do for you boss?'  He apparently could act like it never happened.  Could she?  Apparently the self proclaimed genius also had ESP because he added, "It was nothing boss, you'd have done the same for me."  Then he rolled under a conduit out of sight.   Beka was pretty sure they both knew she would have left him right where he fell and thoroughly reprimanded him this morning.  But, he had taken care of her.  She couldn't remember last time someone had taken care of her.  She doubted anyone had taken care of Harper either.  But apparently, they would take care of each other.  

  
            Beka walked back to the command deck to check the mail, see if there were any job offers.  What she found was mostly bills.  But, there was one job offer; it was to salvage in the Ungari system.  She had never been to the Ungari system.  As far as she knew there wasn't much out there.  But, a job was a job so she sent an acceptance reply and plotted the slipstream course to the Ungari system.  

            Jerrick paced the halls of his home.


	8. Loyalty-3.2

Exits: Part 3, Loyalty

3.2

Disclaimer:  I own nothing and I am getting no money

Jerrick paced the halls of his home.  He'd lost his job as chief information extractor.  After he failed with Seamus they'd reduced his status to one of the many assistant positions.  He was not happy about his current situation.  At night, when he should be dreaming of his legacy living on forever through his hoards of decedents, or about his own bright and glorious future, he dreamed of a sickly tow headed kluge.  

            Jerrick hated Seamus.  He hated the kluge more than he had ever hated anyone.  That's why he had dedicated every moment of his spare time to making sure he saw that boy, kneeling before him begging for his life or perhaps unable to speak and just whimpering.  Then Jerrick was going to personally cut straight through his throat, bisecting the vocal cords that had produced the mocking "Bite me Uber".

            He'd been tracing Seamus Zealazny Harper for months.  It had taken him that long to find him again. Jerrick had transferred off world so that he could cover more ground with his search.  He couldn't find the boy in Boston so he had to have gotten off world.  So Jerrick had left his family behind and now served as an assistant on a prisoner ship.  He was not happy.  The boy needed to die.

 Jerrick may never have found him if he hadn't come across Mr. Bobby Jenson in one of his cells.  The human had been picked up for stealing weapons.  He had been stupid enough to go to a Neitzchien controlled Drift.  Drunk and mad, he had been ranting, and shared too much in front of the wrong people.  

It took exactly 1 minute and 20 seconds before he spilled his guts.  Seamus Harper had been his acomplis.  As far as Jensen knew Harper was still on a salvage ship known as the Eureka Maru.  Jenson seemed more than willing to save his own skin at the cost of the little kluge.  He swore up and down that Harper had planed the whole theft and carried it out himself.  

            Jerrick was overjoyed.  Jenson told him absolutely everything he had been searching for.  So, he knocked Jenson around for a few days, left him a bloody broken mess, and released him. Then Jerrick went to his captain with this information. There was a price on the boy's head for escape, but he wasn't a priority.  So, the ship had no intention of putting forth resources to find the escaping.  This frustrated Jerrick, the boy was practically in his grasp, but they weren't going to do anything about it. 

            So Jerrick took matters into his own hands.  Knowing this "Maru" wouldn't take a job from a Draco-Katsov, so he would get someone else to do it. Well, a pretend someone else.  Claiming to be Agar Terelli he offered the Maru a job.  From what Bobby had told him the captain would jump at the work.  

            Jerrick's pacing brought him to the landing bays.  There were modified transport fighters there.  True, he shouldn't take one.  But, Seamus could not be allowed to get away.  So he would meet this ship that dared to harbor the loathsome kluge.  He would meet them in the Ungari system, get what was his, and make the miserable human suffer.  

            Beka and the Maru arrived in the Ungari system right on schedule.  Thanks to Harper the ship had never performed better and they made great time.  Harper had agreed they were lucky to get this job.  The Maru had been without a job for a couple weeks and Beka had begun worrying about the payments still due on the bills.  The Ungari system was going to be great for them.

            According to the letter a Mr. Agar Terelli had a purchased a derelict freighter here in the Ungai system and just needed the Maru crew to salvage what could be salvaged and bring it back to him on Pirpont Drift.  He'd pay them when they arrived.  It was a normal enough deal.  

XxxXxxXxxxXxxxXxxxXxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxxXxxxxxXxxxxx

Unfortunately it didn't stay normal very long.  Moments after they arrived and discovered no freighter a slipstream opening released a single Neitzchien fighter; a very heavily armed fighter in fact.  But, instead of firing on the Maru immediately it hailed the salvage ship.  The fighter could seriously damage her ship so she answered.  

            "What can I do for you?"  She asked the looming Neitzchien on her screen.

            "I understand you have a Mr. Seamus Harper as a part of your crew."

            "I think you must be mistaken."  Beka didn't understand what was going on, but whoever this Uber was she was not going to hand Harper over to them.  

            "Are you sure?" he cooed in a very disturbing manner.  "Because I heard he was with you, and if you are lying I will make you scream until you throat is raw and you are desperately begging for death."  

            "Uhm, Wow" was Beka's response.  The Maru was jolted as Jerrick's tractor beam took hold and began drawing the salvage ship closer.  This was not good.  


	9. Loyalty-3.3

Exits Part 3, Loyalty

Disclaimer:  I own nothing and am getting no money

A/N:  The Finale, thanks for reading

It was about to get worse though.  Harper rushed through the door and skidded to a halt.  His greeting of "What the frell is going on?" dying quickly on his lips.  Beka saw his muscles jerk tight, a snarl in his throat and a sneer on his lips.  But she could tell he was terrified.  

            "Seamus!" Jerrick smiled.  He had found the one who got away.  He could right that wrong and make his suffer.  Jerrick had not been this happy in quite a while.  

            "Bite me Uber"

            "I see we still have vocabulary problems"

            "I'm fine Jerrick, why don't you just head home."  The ship jumped again as it came in contact with the Neitzchien's.  The screen went black.  

            Beka turned to her engineer.  "Hide" he told her, voice full of authority and terror.  

            "Why, what is going on?"

            "He will torture you. You'll wish you were dead.  I know.  So hide!"  With that he yanked open a wall panel and actually pushed Beka in despite her protests and shut her in.  

She couldn't see anymore but she heard Harper finding his own hiding place.  It sounded like he was under the floor.  Beka was more cramped than she had ever been as she waited for whatever was going to come next.  Her feet were under her, she was bent forward enough for her chest to be on the floor of this little space.  She reached back as far as she could and tried to get a hold of her gun.  She was pretty sure she was going to need it.  

Harper had become silent.  Beka held her gun and waited.  Then there was the clunk of heavy boots on deck plates.  She could feel the Neitzchien coming.  She recalled the rage behind his eyes as he calmly threatened to kill her slowly.  Harper knew this crazy man, as was afraid of him.  Beka was afraid for him.  

She didn't want Harper to get killed.  He'd proved he'd protect her; she wanted to protect him now.  No one deserved what those blasted Neitz did to their prisoners.  She heard the intruder sniffing.  

            Harper sat in a tiny hold beneath the floor.  He was hiding from Ubers again.  It was just like Earth.  He sat in the dark, hoping they wouldn't find him but knowing they would.  He hated this feeling, but he couldn't stop it.  He hated the Neitzchiens so much.  They killed his family, friends, left him alone in the world.  And they could do this to him; make him tremble in the dark.

Jerrick knew Seamus was there.  The smell of his fear was hanging in the air.  He could hear 2 accelerated heartbeats.  He really didn't care about the Captain.  Let her stay hidden in the wall.  The Neitzchien followed his nose to the floor.  One quick pull and his treasure was revealed.  

Light flooded into Harper's hiding place and he felt himself being hauled out.  It was happening.  Jerrick had him by the arm and then his hair and was now dragging him off the command deck.  Harper put all his weight into staying put, but it was a useless endeavor.  Despite his time on the Maru he still was a scrawny mudfoot, not exactly able to fight off a Neitzchien whose mind was clouded by vengeance.  

In her hiding place Beka was getting madder by the second.    She couldn't let this go on.  Harper was her crew.  A captain defended her crew.  She heard a struggle going on.  The Neitzchien was stealing her engineer.  Unfortunately, the mudfoot had safely locked her in this hole.  She was going to have to kick her way out.  

The scraping of boots on deck and strangled noises made by a man desperately trying to break free faded.  Beka wriggled her feet out from under her and placed them on the plate.  This cramped position was not giving her much leverage for kicking.  She was once again envious of her incredibly flexible engineer. 

 Who did he think he was putting her in here?  He thought he was protecting her.  But, unlike him she did not consider a hiding place where your feet needed to be over your head to escape very practical.  Her feet didn't make it over her head but she did manage to kick the plate off and get out of the hole.  

Not pausing she headed for the Neitzchien boil on her ship.  That's where he would have taken Harper.  As she walked determinedly she realized what a change this was.  She was not thinking about herself.  She was thinking about the mudfoot she had simply let stay to get rid of Bobby.  But he was a member of her crew, and she was not giving him up.

Harper was dragged off the Maru and onto Jerrick's stolen ship.  Jerrick had been using the boy's hair to lead him about; pulling so tight blood was starting to change its color near the Neitzchien fingers.  He released the boy onto his ship, letting him crash into the wall.  "You do know you will die today Seamus."

"That is really going to mess up my weekend plans."  Jerrick laughed coldly in response, a horribly disturbing sound.  

            He backed Harper into a corner.  The Neitzchien leaned forward and took Harper's arm.  "This is the one I broke wasn't it?  It seems to have healed well."  Harper did not answer.  He only glared.  Jerrick promptly squeezed hard enough to shatter the bones and with a twist separated the joint in his shoulder.  Harper yelped; how Jerrick had missed that sound.  "It probably won't heal so well this time since you'll be dead."  

            Jerrick smiled as he looked at the man he had backed into the corner; the man who had caused him so much trouble.  He wanted to see the fear in his eyes.  He'd seen fear as he dragged the boy from the hole.  But it had faded.  The damn boy wasn't afraid if him.  "Do you remember what I did to you last time?"

            "Do you remember what I did last time?" countered the mudfoot.  The fear replaced by rage.  "Unless you forgot, I won!"

            Jerrick growled and drew his knife.  He lunged for Seamus.  No more waiting, the boy would die.  The shot from Beka's blaster hit him square in the back mid lunge.  It threw off his aim and the knife slid into Harper's already battered shoulder.  He grunted as he felt the metal tear his flesh as the heavy dead weight of Jerrick's body pin him against the floor.  

            Beka smelled the already present blood.  She saw the Neitzchien on the brink of killing Harper and she shot.  She pulled the trigger and watched him fall.  The murderous bastard was dead.  She hurried to the fallen body and with no respect for the dead, pushed it off her engineer.  Harper was under there.  

"You saved me boss."  He weakly coughed, already blacking out.  

            "Yeah kid, I can't have people coming by and stealing my crew."

            "Thanks" and his head fell back.

            Beka got the kid medical help.  His arm had to be set and immobilized for 6 weeks but nothing was permanent.  By the time he could use that hand she had grown pretty fond of the kid.  She helped him with the repairs, since having only one hand slowed him down considerably.  Not his mouth though, it turned out the mudfoot was quite a talker, but he made her laugh.  He didn't leave either.  

The end


End file.
